The day they crossed the Rhine I was flying a spitfire from a base in Holland as part of a squadron of twelve fighters. Our job was to support the Canadian Army which meant strafing behind the enemy lines and making as much trouble for the Germans as we could. I was with another flyer and my job was to protect his tail. He was an American chap by the name of Sluga. He had just finished a tour in Italy. Every time we saw something moving we would dive down and take a look and see what it was. Mostly it was civilians with carts, baby carriages and stuff like that.
On our third time down we spotted a German tank. When Sluga attacked the tank I was flying right behind him. The tank reacted by firing it's 88 mm cannon at us. The Germans got real lucky and knocked both of us out of action. I didn't notice anything at first but when I started to climb up smoke entered the cockpit from around the instruments on my dashboard! There was nothing for it but to climb as high as I could and jump out.
When I got up to about 5000 feet I opened the canopy and climbed out on to the wing. I was sitting on the wing hanging onto the body of the plane ready to jump when I noticed the plane was turning to the left. It didn't take much to figure that if I jumped the tail wing would hit me. I pulled myself up off the wing and back into the cockpit. Then I stepped out on to the other wing and parachuted to the ground. Years later at a reunion another fellow from that squadron asked me if I realized how high I was when I bailed out of the spitfire. He told me I was only 700 feet off the ground when I jumped! No wonder it seemed like such a short trip down!
CAPTURED AND LIBERATED
After I bailed out of my shot up spitfire I landed in a field and was soon surrounded by German soldiers. Actually they were just kids. The German army was pretty well run out and they were calling up youngsters to fill their depleted ranks. They were called the Volkstrum and considered a bit dangerous. They took me to a little woods where they had a slit trench dug which I thought was a grave. They sat me down beside this hole and I thought for sure it was to be my grave. I was pretty frightened! They were all standing around talking in German but one of them could speak a little English. He asked me if I knew anything about Arizona. His brother was a P.O.W. there and he wondered if it was a nice place. I assured him it was a really nice place and his brother would have no trouble there. Later on they took me from pillar to post. They were pretty disorganized by this time of the war. Their transportation and communications were really broken down. On different occasions I saw tanks and trucks pulling one and sometimes two other tanks or trucks to save gas. It would make you wonder why they held out so long. Probably because they were on the run they didn't bother me too much. They really weren't too hard to get along with. The young German that was assigned to guard me had had enough of the war. He just wanted to get home to his wife. He was only seventeen. I remember he had a cardboard box with some civilian clothes in it. He was prepared to become a civilian as soon at the first opportunity. When they decided to evacuate the town we were in he got me out of the cell and gave me a German greatcoat to wear. The two of us just took off. A few minutes after we left they blew up the building I had been held captive in. Shortly after that we were picked up with a bunch of other people by some Americans. A group of them looking for food was trying to talk to a colonel. Everybody was starving. I kind of pushed my way through the crowd and reached out my hand to the American colonel. Remember now, I still had the German greatcoat on. Just in a flash he pulled out his pistol and shoved it in my stomach. "Stand back!" he shouted. Boys, I wasn't long standing back!"Who are you?" he demanded. After I told him I was a pilot in the Canadian forces he said, "Is that so? Where are you from?" I answered him,"New Brunswick". He then asked me if I knew where Alberta was and the name of the province beside it. After convincing him I was who I said I was he noticed I looked hungry. He gave me some K-rations and a carton of cigarettes. They had all kinds of cigarettes with them in a jeep. He then took notice of the young German boy with me and said he would have to be taken prisoner. I told the colonel that the boy got me out of the jail and there was a good chance I would have been blown up with it if not for the lad getting me out of there. I said I would like to do something for him. I convinced them to let him have his box of civilian clothes and then said he should have some cigarettes. Without asking, I reached into the back of the jeep, grabbed a carton of cigarettes and gave them to the young fellow. The last I saw of him he was in the back of a truck with his box of clothes in one hand and a carton of camels in the other. As the truck pulled out he waved goodbye to me with both hands. In my mind's eye I can still see him waving that box of clothes and those cigarettes. His name was Rudolf Eischer. I often wonder what became of him.